After days of dining pretty much exclusively in pubs – and eating quite well, I might add – Jay Brooks and I decided to treat ourselves to a dinner at Fergus “Nose to Tail Eating” Henderson’s St. John Restaurant, located mere steps from our Smithfield area digs. It was a wide decision.
After teasing my already engaged appetite with a glass of Champagne, I dined on roasted marrow bones with parsley salad and wonderful grey sea salt, followed by Middlewhite pork loin with lentils, potatoes and greens. To accompany, I had a pint of the Meantime London Stout and a glass of Domain Boudau Cotes du Roussillon. We finished the night with a plate of delicious but poorly identified cheeses and a split bottle of Meantime London Porter.
All in all, it was a delicious beer-wine-swine experience, hampered only by rather dreadful service, which quite frankly seemed to start with my audacious ordering of beer to go with my marrow bones, rather than a nice, big, profitable bottle of wine.
It was truly refreshing to visit a quality restaurant that also offered a fine selection of ales, but why the double standard for those who choose to partake of them?
(More on the other GBB, the Great British Beer Festival, later.)